


Last Ounce of Courage

by HopefulNebula



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-15
Updated: 2008-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:09:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1630766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopefulNebula/pseuds/HopefulNebula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Balthamos had never thought of himself as 'fallen' before."  Gen.  Balthamos-centric, with other characters on the side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Ounce of Courage

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to tacky_tramp, who offered to beta this!
> 
> Written for Thevina

 

 

ï»¿Balthamos had never thought of himself as "fallen" before.

He had been proud before, and with good reason; he wasn't the most powerful of his kind, but he had led a good life, had been on the side of true righteousness, and he had remained brave and defiant in the face of the Authority. He had loved fiercely, and been loved just as fiercely in return; he was proud of that as well. Certainly he had run from fights before, but always with good reason: he had learned early in his existence that some battles are truly unwinnable, and those fights are rarely worth losing.

The fight Balthamos had just fled was not one of those battles. Leaving Will at the cave had been an act of cowardice, nothing more, and he was paying for the decision with shame. Had his dear Baruch been alive, Balthamos could have faced the depths of his shame and returned to Will and Lyra. Baruch had been human once; he understood emotion in a way completely foreign to Balthamos, even after thousands of years as Baruch's lover. He had been Balthamos' guide to the human mind, his link to what he had never been himself.

If Baruch had been alive, perhaps Balthamos could have returned to the cave. But Baruch was dead, and Balthamos was dying. He had strength left for perhaps one more heroic act, that was all, and he doubted he could face Will alone after what he had just done.

He was bleeding -- not in a literal sense, but his life was running out of him as surely as blood from an exposed vessel. The loss of Baruch had laid his heart open; the steady flow of Dust into the blankness between worlds was pulling it away. While he knew he could be of no use in the final battle, he could guide the childrens' allies as long as he was able.

\-----

Balthamos was beginning to think the witch was avoiding him. Given his condition, it had taken him nearly a week to even get close to her, and another day to find her exact location. But she couldn't know he was there; he had only caught up with her two days ago, and since he'd reached her he'd taken the forms of local animals. All he had to do now was talk to her without drawing undue attention or scaring her away.

He would reach her in a dream. It was a method both angels and witches used, and as such it was most likely to get her attention, but it also required the cooperation of the other party: that is, the witch needed to be asleep for Balthamos to contact her this way, and she didn't rest for three days after Balthamos found her. But finally her exhaustion took hold.

Balthamos watched from a safe distance as the witch made a rudimentary shelter -- more for simple camouflage than protection from the elements -- around a raised tree root. As soon as he was reasonably certain she was dreaming, he made his way toward her. Not an instant later, Balthamos heard the beating of great wings and felt the brush of air through him. An instant after that, the witch was upright, standing in front of him, bow and arrow ready.

"You are an angel," she said, voice full of light but weighed down by exhaustion. "But a friend or an enemy?"

"I am an ally of Will and Lyra, which makes me an ally of yours," he replied. "I have no weapons with which to harm you, nor do I desire to do so."

"Why are you here? We suspected your presence for days," the goose-dæmon said. Why did you not reveal yourself when you began following us?"

Balthamos turned to the dæmon. "By not revealing myself earlier, I have lost your trust, and understandably so. It was an error in judgement on my part," and a mistake Baruch would never have made, but he saw no reason to voice that sentiment. He turned back to the witch-queen and continued. "I feared dealing openly with you would expose you to more danger than you already face."

"Than everyone in all the worlds already faces, you mean."

Balthamos refused to acknowledge that, for what was the point? They both knew it was the truth. "Return to your clan before you go to the gyptians. Tell them of what you have seen and what they can expect to face in the coming battle. They need to be aware of exactly how grave the situation is."

"And the gyptians?"

"Go to them after you have finished with your clan. They may wish to fight, and you should let them. But ask them to keep one ship out of the battle, and stay with that ship. The children will need its transport and your guidance. I can guide you to them, if you will trust me."

The witch and her dæmon spent a few moments in silent communion, sharing their thoughts with no one else, and Balthamos felt a pang of loss at the similar moments he had spent with his Baruch.

"We shall," said the dæmon. But if you betray us, know that you will meet your end as surely as the Authority will meet his."

"I will not betray you. Now rest while you can."

So she did, and Balthamos stayed close as she slept.

\-----

When Serafina Pekkala arrived with Balthamos, they called their tenth roping in a fortnight to hear what they had to say. Through the last weeks, there had been fierce debate among the gyptian families about whether to participate in the coming war, and on what side, and the very presence of the angel and the witch-queen was enough to break the stalemate. They sailed not even two days afterward.

They had been at sea for a week, heading for an opening Balthamos knew would lead them to the world in which the children would be tempted, when he felt the tear. He didn't know what had caused it, but something momentous had just happened to the barriers between the worlds, stronger even than Asriel's display on Svalbard, and he knew that the children were at its center.

Whatever had happened was tearing at the very fabric of his being. The Dust of which he was made was being pulled away from him even faster now, and he could no more reverse its flow than he could change the direction of a river. If he stayed with the gyptian boat, it would not be a good death. So he made a quick explanation to Serafina Pekkala, making sure she knew the way to where she needed to go, and left to find the source of the disturbance.

\-----

The first shock was that the disturbance and the children were both in the world of the dead.

The second was that the children were alive -- the first new life in that world since the harpies had come into existence.

By the time the children became the first living creatures to leave that world, Balthamos was beyond shock.

He became a small bird -- generic and innocuous, for he didn't know this world or its wildlife well -- and listened to the children as they rested in their camp.

"You know what I want to do when I get back, I'm gonna sleep for a week!"

"Yeah. I don't know if I'll have my own bed back, but I'd take anything with a mattress."

"You know, Pan and me once had to spend the night on the floor outside our bedroom," Lyra said, and Balthamos could tell she was talking in order to combat her weariness. "We'd snuck out late, see, and Mrs. Lonsdale decided to teach me a lesson, so she locked us out and stayed in the room to make sure of it. She didn't let us in even when I woke up half the Scholars shouting."

Will laughed softly, the first time Balthamos had heard him make the sound. "And how old were you?"

"Dunno. Seven, maybe. Or eight." Will couldn't see it in the dark, but Balthamos could: Lyra's face was flushing a light pink.

"When I was little -- before I realized my mother was sick -- I decided I could fly if I tried hard enough. I'd climb up some steps or a planter and jump off it. My mother used to laugh when I did it, so I'd pretend it was all a joke. One day I decided the reason I kept falling was because I wasn't jumping from high enough."

"You didn't..."

"I did. I opened my bedroom window and almost made it all the way out. That's when my mother found me and pulled me in. It was one of the only times she ever punished me." There was quiet for a few moments. "I miss thinking I could fly." But missing things was a luxury here, and there was no point in focusing on the past when there was a job to be done. Balthamos had let himself forget that recently, but he would hold onto it now as surely as he was holding himself together.

As Will changed the subject -- evidently he'd had the same thought -- Balthamos flew off, still bird-formed, looking for all the world as if he truly was a bird who had been startled from his roost, for he knew what he needed to do.

The second Adam and Eve were well-protected, and they would have to face the next section of their journey alone even if Balthamos stayed with them. But he didn't think any of his peers had considered the second serpent.

\-----

Balthamos approved of Mary Malone as soon as he saw her. Hers was an open mind, one that was always questioning its surroundings, never truly idle. He wouldn't have minded interacting with her, but that wasn't his intention. It would have wasted his dwindling strength. This time, it was out of careful thought and not fear that he remained silent.

Where Mary was, the children would soon be, and the Magisterium had enough power to find her. It didn't have to follow the children as long as it knew where they would be.

He only spent a day with Mary before finding his target in the wheel-tree forest. There had been a glint of metallic light, the texture of woven fabric, the color of flesh, and then his target was gone. No matter. Balthamos had been right: someone had followed Mary to get to Lyra.

The problem now was timing: if he did what he planned too soon, the Authority would be able to send another agent. Too late, and all would be lost.

The assassin -- no doubt a high-ranking member of the Church -- wouldn't dare harm Mary, not yet, for the same reason Balthamos couldn't do anything to him. The only option was to follow him and wait, and hope beyond hope that he would know the proper time when it came.

\-----

The time for action presented itself so clearly that even Baruch would not have forgiven Balthamos, had he missed it.

The children had been offered the future of all the worlds, and it was up to them to accept it. In this Balthamos could not intervene. But the children could not make the choice if they were killed, and he knew what he could do about that.

As Lyra and Will explored the world around them, Balthamos focused on Father Gomez. He was terrified, but what would happen if either of the children died before fulfilling their destiny was even worse than what he faced now.

There -- Father Gomez was reaching for his rifle -- it was _now_ , had to be now.

Balthamos grabbed the man's beetle-dæmon and pulled as hard as he could. Man and dæmon both cried out in fear and alarm, and Father Gomez looked around in vain for the part of him Balthamos held.

"Keep still," Balthamos told the man. "I have your dæmon in my hand."

"But -- where are you? Who are you?"

"My name is Balthamos," he replied, and despite his terror, he was proud.

 


End file.
